praying of a fool and the praise of a blasphemous barbarus; just as the Mals imagine that they alone are human beings and all the rest of the world nothing but inhuman beings, ducks, or mice.
Well, no one can deprive them of their boasting about blood and the tribe of Israel. In the Old Testament they lost many a battle on that account. (No Jew understands this.) All prophets have chided them because of it, for it is a proud, carnal assumption without spirit and faith; but they have also been murdered and persecuted because of it.
CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL
Our Lord also calls them “Vipers.” In John 8:39: “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.” Verse 44: “Ye are of your father, the Devil.”
This was unbearable for them, that they should be the children of the Devil, as they cannot bear it yet. For if they would have to give us this foundation (Abraham’s children), everything they have built upon it would have to fall and be different. [In the following this self-praise is refuted from Scripture as unfounded assumptions. These dissertations then
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